Morgan used to be a pretty normal guy. He went to college by day and played online games by night, leading his guild into new conquests - until he got hit by a car and a dude wearing a wet suit appeared in front of him. The man offered him a new chance at life in a world he had created, a world with similar rules to the games Morgan loved to play. There is the promise of great rewards and power, he says, if Morgan manages to complete the Tower of Power.

Zac was alone in the middle of the forest when the world changed... The whole planet was introduced to the multiverse by an unfeeling System... or God. A universe where an endless number of races and civilizations fought for power and dominion. Zac finds himself stuck in the wilderness surrounded by deadly beasts, demons, and worse. Alone, lost and without answers, he must find the means to survive and get stronger in this new cut-throat reality.

It was a day like any other when suddenly the world changed. The universe reached a threshold humanity didn’t even know existed, and it was time to finally be integrated into the vast multiverse. A place where power is the only thing anyone can truly rely on.

Zach grew in power and thrived in the post-Framework world. He became a respected leader, a shining example of what it meant to be good. But as the world ended, he had only one thought: to punish the monster that had killed the world long before the Framework ended it. Yet not even with his incredible power was he able to stand against the World Ender. His arrival in the new realty, the Infinite Realm, gives him the chance to grow stronger, to find the monster again-and make it pay.

After his parents died, Alex Roth had one desire: become a wizard. Through hard work, he was accepted into the University of Generasi, the world’s greatest academy of wizardry.... Fate, however, had another plan. On his 18th birthday, he is Marked by prophecy as one of his kingdom’s five Heroes, chosen to fight the Ravener, his land’s great enemy. But his brand is "The Fool". Worst of the marks.

Felix's life on Earth had become a series of dead-end jobs, ruined relationships, and rotating apartments smaller than most postage stamps. By all accounts, even his own, he was a coward. Too afraid to move forward, to take risks. Yet when given the chance to choose between risking his life or walking away from a deadly encounter, he didn't hesitate. Moments before his untimely demise, Felix was snatched from earth and thrust into a magical world known only as "The Continent". Empowered by the "System", he learns that he can strengthen himself through combat and dedication.

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible. In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot.

The decision to start a new life is never an easy one, but for Joe the transition was far from figurative. Becoming a permanent addition to a game world, it doesn't take long to learn that people with his abilities are actively hunted. In fact, if the wrong people gained knowledge of what he was capable of, assassins would appear in droves.

Michael finds himself in the realm of the Forever Kingdom, with no memory of how he got there and who he is. Even so, he must participate in the Grand Game and forge a new destiny for himself. Dropped into a dungeon of monsters and strange magics, would you survive in a game where to lose means death? Alone, and with little more than his wits to aid him, Michael must advance as a player, slay his foes, and gain experience. All while navigating the intrigues around him and discovering his purpose.

Matt plans to delve the rifts responsible for the monsters that destroyed his city and murdered his parents. But his dreams are crushed when his Tier 1 Talent is rated as detrimental and no guild or group will take him. Working at a nearby inn, he meets a mysterious and powerful couple. They give him a chance to join the Path of Ascension, an empire-wide race to ascend the Tiers and become living legends. With their recommendation and a stolen Skill, Matt begins his journey to the peak of power. Maybe then, he can get vengeance he seeks.

Luke is an apprentice leather worker, training with his family to one day take over the business. He and his friends Andre, Taylor, and Zed have known each other forever, and swear that nothing will ever tear apart their friendship. Then the Royal Decree comes. With the Dynasty of Dogs invading, and strange monsters appearing in the Hollow Kingdom, a draft has been implemented. Everyone 17 or older is required to be tested for "Potential". If they have it, they will join the mysterious and renowned Ascender Corps. If not, they will be drafted into the Legion as a forced recruit.

Arthur lives with his father, a fallen but proud former noble, in Border Village #49, along with the other good folks condemned to toil in service to the Baron. But Arthur has an edge: a stolen heart card that secretly fell into his possession, thanks to a dragon. It’s a priceless source of power for the Baron and the tyrant will kill to get it back. Invaluable, too, to a young man of spellcasting ambitions.

Due to unusual circumstances, Randidly starts in an isolated dungeon far beyond his level, forced to rely on the mysterious Traveler Shal in order to learn and survive with the dangerous new status quo for his world. But survive he does, only to leave the dungeon and discover that while he experienced several hellish months in the dungeon, only half a day passed on Earth. Randidly's capabilities are now more than enough to help build a small enclave of survivors, but that doesn't mean balancing his sense of responsibility against the plots of an unfriendly town will be easy.

A world on the precipice of the apocalypse. A secret forged in the flames of war. A chance to start over. For John Sutton, only one of those three things matters. Retired from a decade of brutal war, he wants nothing more than a quiet pastoral life while he does his best to stem the steady increase of his Doom Points before they hit 100, signaling the start of the end. He’s been given a small farm on the outskirts of the empire as a thanks for his service, but no matter how far he travels, it's impossible to escape the war's devastating effects on the world.

Beneath the light of three moons, the world of Aster Fall lies shattered. Classes are broken, Outsiders are invading, and the future is unknown. The ancient guardians have left and no one knows where they have gone. The fate of the world lies with one young man. Sam Hastern. His family has been cursed by a broken class for the last fifty years. No one has ever managed to level it, condemning them to the lowest paying jobs and life in a barren village.

Morgan used to be a pretty normal guy. He went to college by day and played online games by night, leading his guild into new conquests - until he got hit by a car and a dude wearing a wet suit appeared in front of him. The man offered him a new chance at life in a world he had created, a world with similar rules to the games Morgan loved to play. There is the promise of great rewards and power, he says, if Morgan manages to complete the Tower of Power.

2044. The world of games changed long ago. "Ascension" has become one of the most popular VRMMO games. It is a huge world divided into a hundred Floors, with each Floor a boundless location with its own countries, tribes, and millions of players. The object of the game is to unlock all the gates and conquer the top. Having joined the game, Will Thomson doesn't realize that he is all by himself. Then he accepts the first quest...Cursed Rat: level 46....

Some people just knew how to go out in style. Tim had never been one of those guys. Tim was always a planner. The plan was to get into college, graduate, and find a well-paying job. That plan was coming together nicely until he saw a presentation to get paid to play The Etheric Coast. At his graduation ceremony. After watching the company's employee recruitment video, Big Richie's words had a whole new meaning. He could spend his life going from a cubicle at work to a one-bedroom apartment and back again...or enter a virtual world of unlimited possibilities.

Log-in or die. Those are the only choices left for Clay Hopewell. Infected with the ZERO virus, he has less than 24 hours before he bites the dust. With no cure available, there's only one option left: digitally reincarnate himself in the most advanced virtual reality game ever, the mysterious and newly released Arcane Kingdom Online. But cheating death and gaining immortality isn't that easy. If Clay survives the risky cognitive upload process, he'll still have to contend with a fantasy world teetering on the brink of crisis.

Will refused to admit to the HR lady at Radical Interactive that he'd never played their debut virtual reality MMORPG The Realm. With the company's failed attempt at entering the gaming industry, they switched their sights to focus on smaller scale educational programs. Being a beta tester for Radical Interactive was not the dream job that Will had envisioned, but he had hoped it would get his foot in the door to one day becoming a graphic designer for the company. He never realized that he was literally signing his life away.

The end of the world had arrived just as many had predicted, in a global exchange of nuclear weapons. What no one predicted was the sudden message that appeared before every living soul moments before impact, a message from "The Administrators" revealing our entire world and everything in it to be a species simulation. According to the message, humanity had been reset over a million times and every single time we could not prevent our own extinction. No more resets for humanity. No more chances.

A world on the precipice of the apocalypse. A secret forged in the flames of war. A chance to start over. For John Sutton, only one of those three things matters. Retired from a decade of brutal war, he wants nothing more than a quiet pastoral life while he does his best to stem the steady increase of his Doom Points before they hit 100, signaling the start of the end. He’s been given a small farm on the outskirts of the empire as a thanks for his service, but no matter how far he travels, it's impossible to escape the war's devastating effects on the world.

Skree loved playing Massively Multiplayer online role-playing games. When he becomes the first player to reach level 100 in his favorite game, he is offered the chance to test a brand new game. Never one to read the fine print, he jumped at the chance to be the very first player to see the brand new game. But some opportunities are just too good to be true. Awaking to find himself trapped in a brand new world and struggling to survive, James must find a way to master the game and escape the world of Raiya.

World of the Changed completely modified human consciousness. The incredible graphics that worked even on the simplest of phones. The intuitive interface that made the game accessible for absolutely anyone. The aggressive marketing campaign that put news about the game on every TV, every phone, every tablet. By the time the launch was a few days away, an entire army of fans was out there waiting for just one thing: Hour X. That was what the mysterious developers were calling the release time.

Would you be prepared to work for free? How would you like to bust your hump for a large corporation 60-plus hours a week without a wage or a single day off for the vague promise of some mysterious perks in the distant future? You'd refuse point blank, wouldn't you? But what if the job in question was playing a state-of-the-art fantasy MMORPG game? And what if this was the only thing you're really good at? Especially considering that your in-game partner is someone really special to you - and this person already lives a virtual life?

Matt's just an ordinary guy, but when he's beaten, robbed, and left for dead, bleeding out at the bottom of a gully, it all has to change as he grasps frantically at his only chance for survival, coming as it does in the form of a glowing, dangerously pulsing light. With his reality forever altered, Matt must quickly find a suitable place to deploy the Dungeon Core, fighting his way through the hundreds of people between him and safety, because if he doesn't do it soon, a Core Detonation will solve all of his problems for him....permanently.

A game is only a game if you can quit. This is something I learned the hard way. I just wanted to let off some steam in virtual reality and ended up getting murdered and imprisoned in the body of one of the undead - slow, clumsy, and cursed to die at the hand of other players over and over again. The only way out of this awful predicament was to find the legendary Scroll of Rebirth, but the helpless plague-ridden corpse would need to be turned into a real killing machine. If only people knew what it was like to level up a dead rogue....

For eons, conquering dungeons has been the most efficient way to become a strong adventurer. Although not everything is as straightforward as it seems. Several questions have always plagued the minds of those who enter these mythical places of power: why are there so many monsters? Where do the amazing weaponry and heavy gold coins come from? Why does the very air fill with life-giving energies? Cal has all of the answers to these age-old questions, for a very simple reason. He is a Dungeon Heart.

Zach grew in power and thrived in the post-Framework world. He became a respected leader, a shining example of what it meant to be good. But as the world ended, he had only one thought: to punish the monster that had killed the world long before the Framework ended it. Yet not even with his incredible power was he able to stand against the World Ender. His arrival in the new realty, the Infinite Realm, gives him the chance to grow stronger, to find the monster again-and make it pay.

There are whole anthologies of stories out there about what humankind does when a game enters their world. But what about when they're living in one where a game arrived thousands of years before? What if they're the survivors of a bloody struggle, having fought for and earned their place on the planet? Tailyn Vlashich was a young nobody far away from all those grander issues. All he cared about was one thing: making his way through a harsh world where the emperor, evil foes, and an impartial god held sway.